Trump

A few days ago I caught a bit of an interview with Chris Christie. It was hard to watch, because Christie is such a despicable human being. Eventually, I turned it off. No, not eventually, I turned it off after a minute, maybe two. He was asked about something involving a statement Andrew McCabe made. Christie said he wouldn’t believe anything McCabe said because McCabe was a liar. “What about Trump?” was the next question.

And here is where the interview turned into the classic kind of Christie bullying and lying that makes him so despicable. His autobiography is aptly named, “Let Me Finish,” which is what his style of argument seems to be most, if not all, the time.

The response of Christie went like this: “What about Trump? McCabe is a liar. He was found to be lying by the … I wouldn’t trust anything Andy McCabe said. Trump is a totally different situation. It’s up to the American people to decide…”

He reiterated these points over and over again. He wouldn’t move off of it. I turned off the TV.

I read McCabe’s book. I had to think to myself, “Did McCabe lie?”

It took awhile to recall, and there is a difference of opinion, based on the recollections of McCabe and James Comey, of exactly what was said and how it was interpreted with a legal entity accepting Comey’s opinion. (I don’t remember the name of the legal entity. It was one of those titles like Office of …) But the circumstances I remember. A newspaper was getting ready to publish a report. They asked the FBI for comment. The report was incorrect in a number of places. McCabe’s job at that time was to interact with the media. He was in a difficult position in this case because the story was incorrect and it was about an ongoing investigation. He couldn’t tell the news anything about the ongoing investigation, yet the report was factually incorrect. He had to steer the conversation and the report in such a way so as to make sure the reporter understood. Whatever he did, Comey had one opinion and McCabe had another, as to what was said and how it was interpreted. A review of the matter agreed with Comey. In other words, this was a difference of opinion, hardly a lie, but Christie took this as reason to never trust anything McCabe said.

What is becoming all to common is this kind of argument by conservatives, Republicans, Trumpers, and their enablers and their sycophants. When I listen to people like McCabe, Comey, Bharara, Chuck Rosenstein,James Baker (the former FBI legal counsel) I am struck by their sense of duty, of fairness, of commitment to doing the right thing.

When I listen to people like Christie, Trump, Gulliani, or any of a host of others that support Trump I am struck by the casualness of their lying, prevaricating, and dishonesty. The lack of genuineness is so apparent.

In the same week I listened to Christie say McCabe was a liar I listened to Christie’s former deputy chief of staff Bridgette Kelly speak about her role in what is called Bridgegate. She wrote the infamous email saying, “Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee.” For this she is going to serve 13 months in prison.

When I heard Kelly speak, I was struck by her genuineness and how she had been set up. Christie had something to gain (in his mind) by causing traffic problems in Fort Lee, and Kelly who had nothing to gain and seemed to only be carrying out the wishes of her boss. She was told that it was a traffic study and she understood very well that this would cause huge traffic problems in Fort Lee and was engaged in friendly banter with the guy behind the real scheme, hence her email message. To bolster her evidence as to that thinking on her part you have only ask why a good friend of Christie offered to be her lawyer and then backed out after gathering all the information she had in her defense. Now Christie knew he could lie about saying he knew nothing and Kelly didn’t have absolute proof that he did know.How slimy can you be? How does Chris Christie sleep at night? What mental hurdles and hoops do you have to go through to convince yourself that this is okay?

Meanwhile, Congress’ head of The Ways and Means Committee has issued subpoenas for Trump’s tax returns of the last six years to the treasury secretary and the head of the IRS. It is coming to a head and either the rule of law will prevail, or it won’t. There is no other course that I see. It is a sad time that it has come to this.

Trump and McConnell have rammed through many conservative, and unqualified, judges. Will there be enough sycophants to overturn the rule of law? We’ll have to wait and see.

It is now plainly evident to anyone who still gets real news and not fake news littered with lies that Trump is a terrible businessman. Perhaps, one of the worst in U.S. history. He has done a great job of covering that up and hiding it, all the while burnishing the opposite image. He is the original “media influencer.”

Will his lies, distortions, bullying, and criminal behavior be enough to protect him from the truth?

Last night I saw an interview with the man who wrote Trump’s second book, “Trump, Surviving at The Top”.

Do the Dance

What was interesting about the interview was how it clarified some things for me about Trump that I kind of already knew, but this really focused them. There’s something about saying something out loud, something you were thinking about, that makes it clearer, more real. That’s what this interview with the ghostwriter of the book did for me about Trump and his personality.

Here’s the gist of it.

Many thought after Trump’s first book, “Art of The Deal” came out that he was a great businessman. He wasn’t. In fact, he wasn’t interested in the things you have to know to run a business. He liked the openings, the buying of a business, that kind of stuff, but actually running it? No. He was uninterested. He wasn’t good with math, which explains why he overpaid for things. He liked the buying, not the running.

He sat around in his office and let stuff come to him and he’d react. When this author, the ghostwriter, saw when visiting Donald was him looking at fabric swatches. He seemed obsessed with them. There were these business Trump had bought, and they needed attention, but he was looking at fabric swatches. Why? Because that was something he could handle. The businesses, he couldn’t handle, so he ignored them.

Bang, there it is.

Now that we’ve had a glimpse at Trump’s taxes we know he lost a lot of money, his money, his dad’s money, the bank’s money – lost it all. Why? He wasn’t interested. He didn’t really know, or care, to run a business.

But he managed to promote an image of himself as this business mogul, this big deal maker, and as the real author of “Trump, Surviving at the Top” says, banks ignored what they saw on paper (or the papers were false???) and bought the image, that is until they were in too deep, then they figured out a way to survive and with it Trump managed to survive as well.

Here’s where it gets scary for us. Ask yourself why was it that Trump was so pro Russia during his campaign? Why did he say disparaging things about our allies, about NATO, and so many things that were exactly what Putin and the Russians wanted to hear?

We now know that during the campaign Michael Cohen was negotiating a deal with the Russians to build a huge building in Moscow. Cohen said that he’d be at a rally where Trump would say he had no dealings with Russians and as Trump exited the rally he’d ask Cohen how things were going with Moscow, meaning building the building in Russia, in Moscow. Trump was saying positive things about Russia in order to make a deal to have a building in Moscow.

In other words, he was willing to sell us: the American people, our friends and allies, and all of western democracy out. For what? A tower in Moscow.

Spin it any way you want. For a building in Moscow, Trump was willing to stab us and everyone else in the back. He lied to his supporters, to their faces, at his rallies. He lied on twitter. He lied to the press. He lied. To build a building in Russia.

I became aware of Donald Trump about the time his book “The Art of the Deal” came out. I read it. I took away from it that he had gotten cement poured on the Wohlman Skating Rink in New York’s Central Park, when it was delayed in bureaucratic snafus.

I was quite familiar with the skating rink. In the summertime Schaeffer Beer held concerts there. Almost, every night in the summer someone was performing. They were big names too! The tickets were $2 general admission and $4 to sit in the bleachers at the back end of the rink, opposite the stage. The stage was arranged in such a way that if you got too close you couldn’t see the act. It was raised about twenty feet. I saw Sly and the Family Stone there, and Led Zeppelin ( They weren’t very good. I think it was one of their first shows. Maybe, we just weren’t used to the music? ) People would sit out on the hills around the park and listen for free. It’s where Simon and Garfunkel recorded their well known album.

Trump had a reputation as a big deal maker. He was called “The Donald.” My impression was he was the biggest name in New York City real estate. It was all kind of tangential information. Then he opened his casino.

It was about that time I went out to Long Island to visit some in-laws. I was talking to the wife of a son of a … it’s a long story, but she said she worked for a collection agency.

“Oh yeah? So what does that mean?”

“Donald Trump is our main client.”

“Really? How so?”

“He has a casino in New Jersey. He extends credit to folks who want to keep gambling by letting them sign over their homes.”

“What?”

“Yeah, you can sign over your house. If you lose we are the ones that collect.”

“You kick people out of their homes?”

“Yes. Every week Mr. Trump rides out in a limo to see how many homes we have collected on.”

“Every week?”

“Every week.”

And that’s when I started to pay attention. That’s when I saw the first shred of the real Donald Trump.

It seemed odd to me. Why would a multi-millionaire go out every week to see how many homes he had acquired? Why would he let people put their homes up for collateral to continue gambling? It didn’t make sense, and it seemed really low.

Then came The Apprentice. This continued the Trump as a business mogul motif. I can’t watch those kind of shows. It’s like watching “Let’s Make a Deal” or “Queen for a Day.” The question in all of them is “How far are you willing to go? How deep are you willing to debase yourself? How pathetic are you willing to appear?” I remember watching “Queen for a Day.” Once. The woman who won that day lived in a double wide. Her dryer had caught fire and burned the laundry area. She wanted money to get a new dryer, linoleum, and some paint. They put the Applause-o-meter over her and the decibel meter gave her the highest number. They slapped what looked like to me the Imperial Margarine Crown on her head, hung the robe that looked like it was a second for The Miss America Pageant around her shoulders, and the guy who was the MC, who looked liked the slimy owner of Frederick’s of Hollywood, would sing in a slightly flat off key way, “There she is she’s Queen for a Day.” Even as a kid I remember distinctly thinking that something was wrong about all this. That it was weird, but when you’re young; satire, and odd behavior isn’t something you necessarily understand or grasp.

Then when Trump ran for president more stories came out. He didn’t pay contractors. He used foreign scab labor and didn’t pay them. When they complained he threatened to deport them. His casino in New Jersey went bankrupt. Many of the slot machines weren’t working when the first opened. He said they were used so much they broke down. It wasn’t true. He was sued by many people including people who had invested thousands to learn the secrets of real estate from Trump University, which he said had “the best people.” That he had selected those teachers. None of that was true. His airline went under. There were murmurings of his holding the Miss Universe Pageant in Russia and that there was some shady stuffthat went on. There were rumors that he decided to run for President when Barrack Obama made fun of him at the Correspondence’s Dinner. He had been touting conspiracy theories about Obama, not being born in Hawaii. He said he had people out in Hawaii investigating and “You’d be surprised what they are finding.” We never heard what they found.

There was a pattern to his talk. He seemed to use the same phrases in every situation. He repeated things like: he’s very smart; he went to the best schools; he knows the best people. There were stories that yes he went to Wharton, but was a lackadaisical student. The people he knew were kind of sleazy. He said things during his campaign that were stupid, racist, and seemed to lack any real knowledge of what he was talking about. There were rumors that women were groped by him, that the models in his modeling agency were underage, that he walked in on the Miss Universe contestants when they were changing clothes. Yet, he painted Hillary with her husband’s past indiscretions.

It turned out that everything he accused Hillary or Bill about he had done and worse. In fact, some of it he was doing as he accused them.

Now it’s been revealed that for ten years he paid no taxes and in fact lost more money than perhaps any person in the U.S. The only thing that kept him afloat was his daddy’s money, all of which he squandered. When you look at the money he lost and the loans he couldn’t pay it came to over $3.7 billion dollars. Yet, he was thought to be a great business man. Some of the commentators at Fox still think so. (“He had his name on the side of a plane!” “It’s more money than we can think of.”)

Hopefully, those who have been conned for so long are waking up from their deep sleep.

I would guess it is at the level of a 13 year old boy, who doesn’t think his parents or any adult is around that would tell him, “That isn’t very nice” or “Don’t do that.”

I take as my role model the young man who said to Ted Cruz, “You Suck.”

Okay, so I think I’ve set the bar of expectation at about the right level. Certainly, we can limbo lower, but why bother?

Before I descend to my pre-pubescent self let’s consider what made Rachel very squeamish last night. She clearly doesn’t like to talk about sex. It makes her squeamish. But there were some questions in her opening story that were left open, and I would like answers. Not enough that I want to go looking for them, but enough to raise them. The story involved Jerry Falwell Jr. In a no surprise to me story Falwell had racy pictures of himself that someone had and was trying to blackmail him with them.

Okay, stop right there, Rachel. You hinted that they were pictures of Falwell and his wife, but you didn’t say that. You said something like “the kind of racy pictures that a husband and wife would want to keep between themselves.” So? Was it Falwell and his wife? Or was it Falwell and someone else? In a husband and wife like situation?

Then it turns out Falwell turned to Donald Trump or at least to Michael Cohen and asked him to take care of the situation, which he did. Except he kept one picture and he said, “it was disgusting.”

Wait. What? A husband and wife like picture that was disgusting? I can understand an intimate picture that you didn’t want others to see, but disgusting? Sounds to me like Jerry Junior is into more than racy stuff with his wife.

And that is, of course, the no surprise part of this story to me. There’s that “holier than thou” sanctimonious self righteous part of these evangelists that I find hypocritical and disgusting, not the sex part.

Well, I hope we learn more.

Moving on down…

The New York Times or as Donald Trump likes to say, “the failing New York Times.” Turns out they aren’t the only ones failing. They published a story that says over ten years Trump lost $1.1 billion dollars!

Rachel couldn’t fathom how someone could lose that much money for so long. She said that’s over 100 million a year for ten years running. She’s wrong (well, not really). It’s 110 million a year for ten years. I guess she can conceive of someone losing ten million so why bother bringing up that trifling sum when you are losing an order of magnitude more each year. Besides, losing ten million a year for ten years is only one hundred million.

The numbers that the Times obtained were from Trump’s late 1980s and early 1990 returns. This when he was publishing The Art of The Deal and burnishing his reputation as the big real estate mogul. The Times also reported that during this time Fred Trump was making money, a lot of money. And Donald? Donald was losing money, a lot of money. In fact, the only lose Fred showed during that time was the investment he made in his son’s business.

It turns out that Trump may have lost more money than any other person filing with the IRS during that time. Wow. Maybe Trump should have starred on The Biggest Loser?

So for all you Trump fans and supporters out there, here’s a big shout out. You’re guy is a LOSER.

“No he’s not.”

“Yes, he is.”

“Not”

“Snot. LOSER.”

Hey, I think we should go to the next Trump rally and have everyone make a “L” with their thumb and forefinger and put it up to their forehead.

Then chant “LOU”“SER”in a low moan. Kind of like those vo-ven-swellas at the Brazil Olympics. Just a constant drone of “LOSER LOSER LOSER.”

Nothing overly dramatic.

Then the press can shout questions at him when he’s walking to his helicopter, “Hey Donald, Did you really lose one point one billion dollars?”

“Mr. president how did you lose one point one billion dollars?”

By the way, I think I have the answer to that last question. It’s simple. He’s stupid.

Once we see his grades we can confirm that fact.

“Hey Donald, Are you a stupid loser?”

I think it comes down to this. He did the same stupid stuff over and over.

We know that his dad, Fred Trump gave him at least $413 million. So he had to have lost all that and double. That’s talent.

Fortunately, for Donald, reality rarely enters his sphere. He does what he can to make sure it doesn’t. He listens to Fox. He installed folks in the IRS and Treasury that don’t believe the president should show his tax returns. In fact, putting the IRS Commissioner* in place was a higher priority for Trump than Attorney General.

*that’s the aforesaid “he doesn’t believe the president should reveal his tax returns” guy.

We also have other things to keep reality at bay. There’s the Trump-o-meter, which is really just George Orwell’s 1984 “double speak” in an updated name. We now also have the Barr-o-meter, which is similar, yet slightly less reliable than the Trump-o-meter. (Make sure to pronounce it “Bar” “OH” “meter.” You wouldn’t want to let it get confused with the scientific instrument that tells you changes in atmospheric pressure.

However, speaking of pressure, I’m betting it’s getting pretty intense over at the White House and in the Trump orbit, but isn’t it always?

Trump’s personal lawyer has gone to prison for crimes he committed to aid Trump and Cohen says he’s got more to tell.

There are now 700 prosecutors that say the case against Trump as laid out in the Mueller Report is strong enough to get indictments and convictions.

Elizabeth Warren has called for impeachment proceeding to begin against Trump. (and someone has asked for them against Barr.) Warren is being joined by other Senators. At least John Testor from Montana has said some stuff along those lines. (whether it’s the “I” word, I’m not sure.)

The former White House Counsel, Don McGahn, is being cleared to testify, despite Trump trying to block it.

Various banks have been subpoenaed by House oversight committees and are co-operating in handing over documents. There’s been a temporary halt while Trump sues to block it, but no one thinks even with our currently rigged judicial system that he has a chance.

The State of New York is getting ready to pass legislation to allow the Congressional oversight committees to have access to their state tax records on Trump, if they so desire.

I’m reminded of a Beatles tune. From their first album.

“It won’t be long,

It won’t be long.

Yeah.

til you belong to me.”

I think they had a different idea in mind, but the lyrics fit.

TRUMP IS A LOSER.

TRUMP IS A LOSER.

TRUMP IS A LOSER.

We just didn’t know how big a loser he was.

And what we know only covers ten years.

And those figures are from twenty years ago or more.

My god he could have lost another 1.1 billion every ten years and that would bring his total up to $3.3 billion.

“Well, you know he’s a business man…”

“No he’s not. He’s a LOSER.”

“He’s made a lot of money…”

“No. He’s lost a lot of money because he’s a LOSER.”

Makes me wonder if his defense of why it took him so long to pay off the women he was having affairs with was because he had to scrape together the money?

I have an idea. Here’s a way out for Donald and Mikey Pence.

Why don’t we let a real billionaire buy him out?

Mike Bloomberg, who is worth an estimate $39 billion could buy out Trump.

It would be pocket change for him. Here’s how it would work. Pence resigns. ( Either that or we find the racy pictures of him and Mommy. ) then Bloomberg is appointed VP. It wouldn’t be much ofswitch. The VP is name Mike, Eazy-Peazy. Then Trump resigns and Bloomberg becomes President.

Yesterday, was a day of strange yet seemingly normal. Let me explain. Or, at least, let me give you the data points, because when you get right down to it, that’s all I have.

In a week from today I leave for my trip to Indonesia. On the way I’m stopping off in Hong Kong where my friend Hubert has said he will take me to the highest cocktail lounge in the world and we will pay a ridiculous amount of money to have a cocktail. My friend, dean, wants me to facetime him while I am there, because, I believe, he has a mission for my alter-ego, Bryce Holliwell.

Indonesia is home to the largest Buddhist temple in the world – Borobudur.This is kind of crazy in that the nation is almost all Muslim, and no one really knows what happened to the folks that built the temple, Maybe they do, but there is some uncertainty. Richard Haliburton is to have said, “After you’ve seen Angkor Wat, Borobudur looks like a red brick Baptist church on a corner in Kansas City.” I mean after such a quote, I gotta go see if he’s right.

My guide on the trip is a fellow who has a course on Buddhism, which is available via The Great Courses and I am now at lecture 17 of 24. ( I have to semi-quote our president, “Who knew Buddhism was so complicated?” )

The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA) has just opened an exhibit called “Awaken” which has for its subject TibetanBuddhism. Now that I am reading the title it is actually, “A Tibetan Buddhist Journey Toward Enlightenment.”

Being a member of the museum I can go on Monday evenings to see the exhibit. I went alone. Not my intention, but the way it worked out. I mean, how perfect? I am studying Buddhism to get ready to go see the largest Buddhist temple in the world and here is an exhibit on all that and I’m most of the way through a course on Buddhism. I can maybe piece together a little bit of my disparate knowledge on this subject by having a look see at the museum? Good plan, right? (Right.)

Yesterday, was the day that a lot was supposed to happen in regard to the ongoing investigations of the president’s behavior and finances.

The exhibit at VMFA is laid out like a meditative journey as outlined in a mandala. A mandala for most of us is that brightly painted circle with a square inside it. You often see pictures or videos of Buddhist monks creating mandalas out of colored rice grains or colored sand. After weeks of work it is swept away. The VMFA exhibit begins with our approaching the mandala. Mandalas are laid out with the four cardinal points guarded by four beings, which guard the center, the central point.

The Mueller Report has been handed in to the Attorney General, who has released it to Congress and the public in a redacted form. We now have some idea of what for the last two years the Special Prosecutor has been investigating. This despite the Attorney General creating a false narrative and mischaracterizing the report’s central points and conclusions.

After approaching the Mandala and found worthy to continue by the corner guardians we can continue on. We enter the mandala. This is the outer edge of the exhibit. It features a large banner depicting fire and lightning bolts, and black nothingness. There are corpses and strange creatures (or beings?).

After the redacted version of the Mueller Report was made public there were lots of questions created by it, and by the president’s former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, and his testimony to Congress. Simultaneously to that four different Congressional committees have made requests for documents and information in regard to the president’s conduct, behavior, and finances. These requests have been delayed, denied, and obstructed. Yesterday, a report surfaced that one of the big name Russian oligarchs has bought into a company that produces voting machines used in U.S. elections. Microsoft has announced that it is releasing software to help strengthen electioneering software. Meanwhile, the Senate’s majority leader refuses to bring a piece of legislation to the floor that would strengthen the voting systems in our country.

After viewing the strange creatures on the outer edges of the Mandala the exhibit continues with a walk within the palace walls There are the four cardinal directions. Each direction is marked by a different color and different guardians. Here we see many of the Buddhist teachers, both in painted scroll like paintings on the wall, and sculptures in the center of the hallway.

The fight between the administration and Congress continues. There has been talk about subpoenaing the Attorney General and what would happen if he did not comply and what Congress, mainly the House as the Senate majority leader has joined the White House in resisting any investigation or oversight of the Executive branch. Also the Treasury Secretary has inserted himself into a process he has no business being in the middle of, but because he is the boss of the chief of the IRS, who by law is to hand over any tax returns he is asked to give to the head of the House Ways and Means Committee, and because the Treasury Secretary has decided to instruct the head of the IRS that he, the Treasury Secretary, will make that decision when it comes to the president’s tax returns and whether to turn them over, we are heading to another legal crisis in this regard. The question may ultimately be decided in the courts, which the head of the Senate in concert with the White House and various right wing “conservative” judicial groups, mainly The Federalist Society, have been packing the courts with not only right wing legal minds, but also unqualified by most people’s standards, right wing fanatics. It is hard to say how the courts will rule, because to rule against the rule of law, which the Executive branch and the majority leader in the Senate will want them to do, will mean that the judges have to turn their backs on everything they have claimed to be for. Will they do that? Will they tie themselves in legal Constitutional knots to please a sociopath? It remains to be seen.

Inside the palace walls a mandala has a three by three arrangement of rooms that one would navigate in a clockwise arrangement until arriving at the center. There are banners, statuettes, and equipment such as drums, cymbals, horns, axes, spikes and other objects to be used in the practice of enlightenment. Two were particularly striking to me. One a silver encrusted conch shell trumpet and another a tea pot made out of a human skull. I’m not sure how or what either one has to do with the practice of Buddhism, but one thing has been made clear to me in my very limited time studying this religious tradition (that is the term typically used, rather than “religion.”)

There are many different types of Buddhism and many are in direct opposition to another form of it. Maybe that’s too harsh, but it seems that way. I’ve just started learning about the tantric practices, a term I had always associated with sexual massage, but here it may incorporate that but it seems to stress a faster way to reach enlightenment. The Tibetan model of Buddhism is very different from much of what I have already studied.

Our government is being tests. Our laws and traditions are being stress tested like never before. A week or two ago the president said he wasn’t concerned who in his administration testified to Congress or what paperwork they were given. He said he didn’t care if the full Mueller Report was released, because it completely exonerated him and showed that no crime had been committed and that there was no collusion and no obstruction. Yet, now when Congress is asking for that self same report and for people associated with it to testify the president is fighting in court to block them. He is also fighting the release of his tax returns, which he said he would release.

As I go further into the exhibit, I am aware of sounds. What seems like chanting. Kind of waves of “OM.” Or is it something else? I’m not sure. I am vaguely aware of all this. I gaze upon several beautiful wrought female forms, very physically attractive figures. There’s a serenity about the figures and a sexualness as well. Around any figure whether it is a metal sculpture or a painting there are lesser figures. By that I mean smaller figures. Some are beasts, some are human like forms. There is much I don’t understand. Some of the beasts have multiple arms, three on a side. They seem to be guarding the way. As I move on the chanting is more pronounced. More continuous, less wave like and more a constant buzz.

Yesterday a letter was released signed by over 400 former Federal prosecutors which said that the findings in the Mueller Report on obstruction of justice are enough for any prosecutor to seek an indictment. The only restraint is the OLC (Office of Legal Console) memo that says not to indict a sitting president. However, former Federal prosecutors say they feel certain they could bring an indictment and get a conviction. One has gone further than that and said he could do it “in his sleep.” The evidence they say is overwhelming. Another prosecutor who worked on the Starr Commission that looked at Bill Clinton’s obstruction of justice has said that of the ten counts laid out in the Mueller Report he thinks he could indict and get convictions on four and probably eight of the cases. Furthermore he says that in Clinton’s case the underlying thing he was trying to cover up, to obstruct, was not a crime. In the case of the President it is a crime. In fact, his long time personal attorney began serving his three year sentence for crimes he committed at the behest of the president and for the benefit of the president, not himself. He did not benefit in any way. The president is named as an un-indicted co-conspirator. Just like Nixon was so named in his impeachment case.

Is impeachment necessary? That question is being asked more and more.

The sounds of the exhibit are now continuous. It’s not louder so much as it is continuous, like a constant buzzing, but with a strum and almost a beat. It’s transcendental. By that I mean, mind altering in a distant and indirect way. Much like trying to look directly at a distant faint object in the sky, you are better off seeing it peripherally. This sound is better experienced peripherally. By not being fully focused on it, I can experience it better.

The news says that we are close to a reckoning, my words not theirs. The question is what will those committee heads do that are being told by word or shown by deed that this administration has no intention of complying with Congress’ requests, demands, and subpoenas? Will Congress take the next step? Do they have a choice? What about impeachment? Is this a viable option?

I am in the central chamber. Here the sound is constant. There’s a plaque on the wall. The mandala is shown all in white shadow, except for the center square. Above it says, “You are here.” I turn to see a fearsome many armed, many legged creature. On closer inspection I see there are representations of human heads around it’s neck, strung together. It is supported on one side by a row of tigers standing side by side. On the other are pigeons, side by side. The tigers and pigeons are of the same size.

It is the 34 armed deity Vajrabhairava. (Only the Welsh have longer more complicated names.) This deity was in a dual with Yama, the god of death. He defeated death by holding up a mirror. By holding up the mirror we confront our deepest fears and this allows us to conquer them.

Soon we will learn if our leaders in Congress will force the administration to comply with the law and our Constitution or not.Everyone needs to help, to give them strength and the will to do so. To do otherwise, would mean the end of the republic as we know it. Democracies are fragile things. In history they don’t last long. Two hundred years is typical. We are on borrowed time unless we realize that we are. We need to face the truth.

As I leave the central chamber I am in a wide hallway – all white. The sound is gone. At the end is a sculpted standing figure. It is backlit in white light but I can clearly see it’s peaceful nature. I walk down the corridor toward the figure and exit to one side where I am face to face with a giant metal reflecting surface, a mirror. A young woman is standing to one side of the mirror. She is arranging her hair and adjusting her look.
I leave this area and come to a sitting room where there is an all white representation of a mandala on the wall.